Our friend Mitch Pearlstein, President of the Center of the American Experiment, is one of the country’s leading experts on education and on the family. See, for example, his most recent book, Broken Bonds: What Family Fragmentation Means for America’s Future. Today on the Center’s web site, Mitch published a blog post on education that is one of the most candid discussions of that topic I have seen in a »

At The Week, Michael Dougherty makes, powerfully, a point that I have also tried to make more than once, in a piece called “The astonishing weakness of Hillary Clinton.” The original contains links, which I have omitted: [T]he entirety of Clinton’s campaign has alternated between distancing herself from the legacy of her family name, and stonewalling reporters investigating one scandal or another. In the first category, she has repudiated the »

White House spokesman Josh Earnest mocked Senator Tom Cotton as “an international man of mystery” this week from his perch in the press briefing room. Earnest was alluding to Senator Cotton’s complaint regarding “secret side deals” that are integral to our catastrophic deal with Iran. Senator Cotton responds in this video compiling statements by administration officials, some of whom (unlike Earnest) are speaking unironically under oath. Video via The Right »

The ferocious assault on law enforcement undertaken by Michelle Alexander, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and now the Obama administration culminates in the demand for “criminal justice reform.” It is a cause that appears to be irresistible. Who can stand against “reform,” especially “reform” in the name of racial equity? Heather Mac Donald can. Her invaluable work cannot be cited too often in this context. I quoted from one of Heather’s City Journal »

The College Board has revised its framework for the teaching of AP U.S. History. The College Board has done so, it says, in response to the “principled criticism” and “legitimate concerns” of its 2014 framework by non-liberal scholars. Based on my quick review, the new framework looks like is an improvement. Power Line has promoted criticism of the 2014 framework by scholars and intellectuals like Charles Kesler and Stanley Kurtz. »

AP Vienna bureau chief George Jahn reports: “Iran: US statements on attacking Tehran violates nuke deal” (subject-verb disagreement in the original, I hate to say). On Twitter, AP diplomatic correspondent Matt Lee concisely comments: “Already?!” Here is Jahn’s report: A senior Iranian official is accusing the U.S. of violating the nuclear deal with his country through comments indicating that the accord would make any attack on Tehran’s atomic program more »

This year, the Washington Nationals were expected to be runaway winners of the NL East and strong contenders to win the World Series. They may yet live up to these expectations, but they haven’t so far. One reason is injuries — to Jayson Werth, Denard Span, Ryan Zimmerman, Anthony Rendon, Steven Strasburg, Doug Fister, and others. Another reason is disappointing performance by the bullpen, except for closer Drew Storen (injuries »

As we have said repeatedly, Donald Trump is not a conservative. This is why he has been a registered Democrat for much of his adult life, and has financially supported more Democrats than Republicans. Mostly, Trump is a mushy thinker and a blowhard. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that yesterday on CNN, Trump retreated on immigration to a position that is hard to distinguish from a typical Democrat’s: Trump »

A great many readers were not happy with my analysis here the other day of the moving parts of Mitch McConnell allowing a vote on an amendment to the transportation bill that would revive the Export-Import Bank, after having apparently promised to Cruz and/or the GOP Senate caucus that he wouldn’t allow the Ex-Im Bank to come back to life. In a sentence, I sought to point out that McConnell »

As noted yesterday, Hillary is keeping a path open to head to the tall grass over Planned Parenthood. The White House is hedging over whether it will veto a bill from Congress defunding Planned Parenthood. I suspect Planned Parenthood has a pretty good idea of what is on the videos still to come out, and, barring a legal gambit to suppress them, has warned its Democratic allies about how bad »

This is entertaining: Debbie Wasserman Schultz struggles to explain how a Democrat is different from a socialist. It apparently is a question that has never occurred to her before: All she can do is recite anti-Republican talking points. This tells us volumes about the state of the modern Democratic Party. »

Ammo Grrrll commits microaggressions galore in DISTINGUISHED MEMBERS. Cumulatively, she may even be responsible for aggressions, or macroaggressions. She writes: Please! I am begging here. In the name of all that’s Holy, stop the fake rape charges! Honestly, I can’t take it any more. I would love to write about something else. Anything else. Heck, maybe even guns and ammo again someday. “But nooooooo….”, as Steve Martin used to say. »

Scott has called today’s McClatchy story about Hillary Clinton’s emails “must read.” I agree. McClatchy reports that the classified emails known to have been stored on the former Secretary of State’s private server contained information from five intelligence agencies, and included material related to the fatal 2012 Benghazi attacks. And this, if I understand correctly, is just from a sample of 40 emails. Clinton’s defense continues to be that she »

I’m not a huge fan of the Bush family in politics, but it must be said that they have always conducted themselves with class and dignity, unlike certain other current and past presidents I could name. George H.W. Bush wins the Internet for today with this Tweet: »

The Center for Medical Progress released its fourth undercover Planned Parenthood video today. I won’t attempt to characterize it in detail, except to say that most will find it shocking, especially the last three minutes. There is one exchange that I can’t believe means what it seems to mean: Sometimes if we get, if someone delivers before we are able to see them for a procedure, then we are intact. »